Some of the content on this website requires JavaScript to be enabled in your web browser to function as intended.
This includes, but is not limited to: Flash (also requires the Adobe Flash Player), navigation, video, image galleries, etc. While
the website is still usable without JavaScript, it should be enabled to enjoy the full interactive experience.

Professor, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies
Co-Director, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice

University of Waterloo, Bachelor of Arts University of Toronto, Bachelor of Education Brock University, Masters in Education University of Toronto, Ph.D.

Biography

“McLaren’s writing is a brilliant blend of passion, commitment, and critical analysis and insight. It is poetry and prose in an intimate dance that touches, at once, readers’ hearts and minds. This new book [Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution], which appeared at the very dawn of the new millennium, is no exception. Indeed, it is probably McLaren’s most important and exciting text to date. It is also one of the most important books on critical education, and thus also education and social justice, to have been written in the twentieth century. Only a ‘Comrade of the heart’ could have written with such ardour, precision, and depth.”

Born to a working-class family in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1948, and raised in both Toronto, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Professor McLaren taught elementary and middle school from 1974-1979, and most of that time was spent teaching in Canada’s largest public housing complex located in Toronto’s Jane-Finch Corridor. Cries from the Corridor, McLaren's book about his teaching experiences, made the Canadian bestseller list and was one of the top ten bestselling books in Canada in 1980 (MacLean's Magazine), initiating a country-wide debate on the status of inner-city schools.

Professor McLaren also worked as a consultant for the National Film Board of Canada and served on the Canadian Cancer Society Educational Subcommittee, 1980-83. While a doctoral candidate, he developed a pilot television program called Kidding Around for Multicultural TV. Professor McLaren earned his doctorate in 1984, and served the following year as Special Lecturer in Education at Brock University where he specialized in teaching language arts in urban schools. Professor McLaren moved to the United States in 1985 to help create The Center for Education and Cultural Studies at Miami University of Ohio where he served as Director and held the title of Renowned Scholar-in-Residence and taught from 1985-1993. Professor McLaren then taught at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1985-2013 as a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Professor McLaren is a dual Canadian-American citizen, having become a US citizen in 2000. Professor McLaren holds Honorary Doctorates from The University of Lapland, Finland, the Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Universidad Nacional de Chilecito, Argentina.

Professor McLaren is the author and editor of nearly 50 books and his writings have been translated into over 25 languages. Five of his books have won the Critic's Choice Award of the American Educational Studies Association. Professor McLaren's book, Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (New York: Routledge), has been named one of the 12 most significant writings by foreign authors in the field of educational theory, policy and practice by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; the list includes Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich and books by Pierre Bourdieu and Howard Gardner.

The charter for La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogia Critica was signed at the University of Tijuana in July, 2004 and was later moved to Ensenada, Mexico under the title, Instituto McLaren de Pedagogia Critica y Educacion Popular. Instituto McLaren offers courses, degrees and training in popular education and has been named in Professor McLaren’s honor.

Professor McLaren worked closely with educators in Venezuela to develop programs in critical literacy and critical pedagogy as part of the Bolivarian Revolution initiated by the late President Hugo Chavez.

Professor McLaren is associated with Chapman’s historical commitment to the memory of Paulo Freire, as demonstrated by the university’s Freire archive collection and the only known North American bust of the great Brazilian pedagogical theorist. In 2014, Professor McLaren donated his extensive collection of Latin American revolutionary art to Chapman’s Leatherby Libraries and has also donated his papers and numerous personal artifacts to Chapman’s Paulo Freire Archives. A scholar and activist whose written work and educational activism attempts to reflect the goals and educational practices developed by his mentor, Paulo Freire, Professor McLaren is a frequent international speaker whose work has a global reach.

Professor McLaren is married to Wang Yan (Angie) of Harbin, China. Both Angie and Peter are devoted Chapman Panther football and basketball fans and Peter still roots for his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. A devout Catholic, Professor McLaren is a member of Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California. Among his heroes he includes the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Marxist theorist Raya Dunayevskaya and Brazil’s legendary educator, Paulo Freire.

Fellowships

Distinguished Fellow in Critical Studies, College of Educational Studies, Chapman University

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Commerce (London, England)

Fellow of the American Educational Research Association

Junior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto, Canada 1983

Affiliations

Research Member, Social Policy, Education and Curriculum [SPEC] Research Unit [RU] of the Center for Policy Analyses, School of Education Public Policy and Civic Engagement at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Higher Education of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, Philosophy and Education, Higher Education; Філософія освіти / Philosophy of Education: Research Journal. National Pedagogical Dragomanov University

Outstanding Educator of America Award for 2013, The Association of Educators of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lifetime Achievement Award, Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed, Inc. and Miami University of Ohio.

Critics Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association.

The Annual "Peter McLaren Upstander Lecture" established in 2013 by the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, to be presented each year at the Annual International Critical Research in Applied Theater Symposium, the University of Auckland.

Foreword. In Freedom Fighters: Struggles Instituting the Study of Black History in K-12 Education by Abul Pitre. Cognella: San Diego, 2011, pp. xv-xxx.

McLaren, Peter. (2011). Is There Anyone Out There...? In Paul R. Carr and Brad J. Porfilio, eds., The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education: Can Hope Audaciously Trump Neoliberalism? (pp. 265-285). Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Suoranta, Juha, McLaren, Peter, and Jaramillo, Nathalia. (2011). Becoming a Critical Citizen: A Marxist-Humanist Critique. In Alexander, Hanan, Pinson, Halleli, and Yonah, Yossi, eds., Citizenship, Education, and Social Conflict: Israeli Political Education in a Global Perspective. (pp. 39-60). London and New York: Routledge.

McLaren, Peter. (2011). Critical Pedagogy in Stark Opposition to Western Neoliberalism and the Corporatization of Schools: A Conversation with Peter McLaren. In Pierre Orelus, editor, Rethinking Race, Class, Language, and Gender: A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky and Other Leading Scholars. (pp. 97-110). Lanham, Boulder, Plymouth (UK) and Toronto: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.